This will sound cold and heartless but focus on revenue – a startup needs revenue to survive and grow.  This should be your primary focus.  If you are making money, then you are probably solving a problem that people are prepared to pay money for and probably doing something right.  Follow that path, listen to their needs, adapt your approach, grow and learn.

What about employees?  Obsessing on your employees, benefits, perks, etc. is not going to help a typical startup.  Sure, take care of them and do the right thing but remember that revenue has to be number one.

Too often startups are more concerned with a scalable architecture or the perfect product when they have no customers.  Another mistake that I often see is startups who are focusing on what will impress investors – investors will probably be most impressed with revenue – a company that is growing and making money is very attractive. Most things can be changed along the way especially if you have revenue and customer feedback to use.

Some things like branding can be a little harder to change later but still possible.  Also you will have learned more by then and will have a sounding panel in the form of some customers.